


All These Little Things

by Leonawriter



Series: This Is Our Pompeii [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship, Gen, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 02:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14967023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: Sephiroth wasn't supposed to be on the Modeoheim mission, but he arrives regardless - in time to see Genesis fall.





	All These Little Things

**Author's Note:**

> So, originally this was just one small mini-fic (To See How It's Faded), and then the day before yesterday I tried to start something for a prompt, and accidentally wound up writing some backstory for that AU instead.
> 
> I'm tentatively going to say that each part will follow the POV of a specific character; we've already had Genesis, and this is Sephiroth's. I've yet to know who part three will be, or where it'll be in the timeline, however.
> 
> The titles - and the general theme of the fics - are so far based on or inspired by songs.

Sat alone in the darkness of the data rooms long after everyone else had gone home, Sephiroth realised that he was no longer actually reading the words on the computer screen that hadn't moved in several minutes.

_It's been three days since then. I tried to... and yet, for all my strength, I was powerless._

The articles he had been reading for the past several hours had been a mix of Hojo's reports on experimentation done on monsters, which had been hard enough to stomach even before the recent revelations regarding Genesis and Angeal, and medical research on various forms of cancer - the closest thing he could find to Genesis' degradation. 

He had hoped that he would be able to find some answers. Instead, all he had been able to find were more questions, and an even deeper abiding distrust and distaste of Hojo.

Nothing was helping, and he wished, badly, that he was capable of the same kind of faith and trust in others that Zack seemed to have. 

The conversation they'd had over the phone echoed in his mind-

_"You and I will find them before they do, and-"_

_"And WHAT?"_

_"-fail to eliminate them."_

-and although it was something he was supposed to be immune from, he felt a headache forming between his eyes, the bright light of the screen not helping.

He had hoped that Zack would be able to reach them - if not one, then the other, and through that, bring them back. Instead... Zack had failed, and in a sense, he in turn had failed Zack.

Angeal had been the one who had known what to do when it came to dealing with  _people._ Genesis had once confided to him while they were in Wutai that LOVELESS made more sense to him than most people did, which Sephiroth and Angeal had both found somewhat amusing, considering how the play was often considered one of life's great  _mysteries._ But he had also been the one to, often without even knowing how he did it, rally people around him.

Sephiroth only had what Shinra had given him - the ability to inspire others with his strength, and also to intimidate them. But when faced with this... 

He bowed his head, saved the public files to a disc, and shut down the terminal.

...

He arrived too late.

He stared at the place where Genesis had been, not looking at Zack. After all, it wasn't  _Zack's_ fault that Genesis had chosen this, had always had more than his fair share of the dramatics.

"I'm- I'm sorry," Zack was saying, and he closed his eyes but that only made it worse. "I tried - really, I did - but I didn't realise what he was doing until-"

"That's enough." Perhaps he shouldn't have snapped when he had been told that it could be easy to confuse his irritation with his anger, but Zack fell silent behind him all the same. "Go after Angeal. Ensure that he knows that I am here, and doesn't do anything... rash."

Given what Zack had reported of his mentor's erratic behaviour, he had every reason to be cautious.

"Right." Zack was halfway to the far door when he stopped and turned himself around, hesitating. "Uh... what'll you be doing, then?"

"I... will be retrieving Genesis."

"Okay. Wait, what - but Genesis-"

Sephiroth didn't listen any further, knowing perfectly well what Genesis had done, where he had gone.

Instead, he _moved_.

...

Falling, he thought wryly, was not all that much different from flying. The main difference was the lack of control, and the fact that those with wings could use them to gain altitude, while someone who had none could only go in one direction, which was always where gravity wanted to take them.

The main threat for both was in gaining too much speed before hitting the ground. This, rather than the fall, was why he was more concerned that he was going to find a body surrounded by black feathers, which wasn't helped by the fact that the last he had seen of the other SOLDIER, he had been looking far worse for wear than he had in Midgar.

Which was more than evident, really, he thought to himself as he pushed himself off another set of railings and angled himself off from the wall yet again, given how badly Genesis had been doing against Zack. 

_If Genesis is taken back to Shinra, he will be treated no better than any other traitor. Which at this point, he essentially is._

What he was slowly coming to terms with, the longer this drew on, was that there was no right answer here. 

_Say that Genesis is a monster. That whatever Shinra did to him is what causes him to believe so... that Angeal is little different._

His mind caught on his thoughts the moment he realised that the ground was coming up fast.

_Then what does that make the rest of us...?_

He reached out to lessen his momentum and the force of impact, but his foot touched air - he'd been distracted, he shouldn't have been thinking of such things at such a time - and he scrambled to reorient himself, full of frustration aimed squarely at himself for his lack of focus, and-

Fear. Not for his safety, since he knew that he would survive well enough. But an inability to stop thinking those last thoughts, that were now circling around his mind, stealing the breath from his lungs and borrowing their own spiralling momentum from his very memories themselves.

...

He thinks that his eyes are closed again when he hears laughter, but can see nothing other than darkness. 

The laughter hurts. He knows that voice, he knows that laugh - and yet, Genesis sounds so very little like how Sephiroth remembers. He is too bitter. Too weak. Too  _tired._

Perhaps he should feel relieved that at least Genesis is alive, but then he is realising that the lack of light has nothing to do with his eyes. His eyes are open.

He moves to stand, and hears feathers scraping against metal.

 _Genesis_ , he thinks. Hesitates. Not wanting to startle if his arrival had, by some miracle, been unannounced.

And yet, there is the sound of leather and cloth and feathers not from here, but  _over there_.

"So," Genesis says, the sound of his voice echoing in the vastness of the underground chamber that they have both now fallen into, "I never would have suspected that you would have come to join me."

Sephiroth lifts himself to his feet. There is an ache in one leg that suggests that mako is healing some damage done to it upon his landing, but he knows that it won't hinder him should they come to blows.

The sound of feathers follows him, now beating. Steadying. 

_Attached._

"Don't tell me," he says, voice devoid of emotion. "You knew."

"Knew?" Genesis' voice is still too worn, too weak, too tired, too bitter. He hates every moment of it. "Oh, no. Suspected, though... well. How else could you be stronger than both Angeal and I put together? It simply wouldn't make sense for you to be anything other than just like us. Welcome to the club, Sephiroth. You know the truth, now."

He looks away from the pile of greying hair and feathers and dirty leather and glowing eyes that he can see now that his eyes are beginning to adjust to the gloom, now that his own-

_Feathers and muscle, unlike Genesis' in structure and placing yet without the smaller secondary that Angeal has, capable of sensation as he can feel what the feathers are touching based on how it affects where they are attached at the muscle, including the way that the air passes through them, and although it is unclear how much they are created from physical form and how much is the oft immaterial nature of materia, he is sure that his coat has torn, suggesting more the former than the latter._

-wing, is no longer covering his face.

"I..."  _wondered myself_ , he almost says, but that would give Genesis too much power here, even in the state he's in at the moment. "I told Zack that I would retrieve you," he says instead, and winces internally at how impersonal it sounds. 

Genesis takes it about as well as expected.

"And what do you think they'll do with me? What do you think they'll do with  _you,_ when they find out that their perfect SOLDIER is no less a monster than the ones they've been  _hunting down_."

The difficulty is, he doesn't know how to answer.

...

Zack calls, and Sephiroth is more surprised at the fact that his phone hadn't been lost or damaged than the fact that Zack is now telling him that Hollander is detained - albeit with help from Tseng and a trooper - and that Angeal had, it seemed, been planning on doing something rash. 

Zack didn't know what, only that a large number of Angeal's copies were in the area, and that Angeal had been especially... volatile, before he had mentioned that Sephiroth was nearby.

Apparently, he was supposed to be on his way. Which would now be difficult, given how despite being able to carry his weight in conversation Genesis looked to be a dead weight, and it was going to take some time to get back topside, let alone where Zack and Angeal were.

If he were able to use his new... ability, however... it might save some time. The main difficulty was that he had neither practice, nor experience.

He held out his hand. 

Genesis stared at him as though he had lost his mind, as though  _he_ were the one who had destroyed their hometown, had waged war against Shinra and had acted every bit the monster deserving of distrust.

"Do you know," Sephiroth said, trying to ignore the fact that he could feel his  _wing_ coming out from behind him on his right hand side, compartmentalising it in what was probably the same way that he had seen even SOLDIERs carry on after they had lost limbs, and yet this wasn't lost but  _gained_ , "if you had asked... I may even have gone with you. Not because you think us both... monsters. But because you were my friend."

Genesis narrows his eyes, apparently unable to trust in such sentiments anymore. Sephiroth can't blame him. 

It doesn't stop it from being the truth, however, and Genesis would have known that, if they had truly been as close as he had once thought they were. None of them had ever been the best at outright lying, only in finding loopholes and getting out of having to in the first place. 

He was starting to wonder if that was why Angeal had spent so long away, unable to talk to them, his remaining sense of honour urging him to explain things that he likely did not want to  _inflict_ on anyone else.

"And?" Genesis said, bitingly sharp as ever. "What does that make us now?"

"I don't know. That," Sephiroth said, his own eyes narrowing in a way that had made even seasoned Firsts back away, "is entirely up to you to decide."

...

Genesis takes his hand. 

He also spends the entire flight back up complaining, until Sephiroth reminds him that if Genesis hadn't thought it such a a good idea to hurl himself down so far in the first place, then none of this would be necessary.

Admittedly, he may have snapped more than strictly necessary due to the stress, but - there was a certain amount of vindictive pleasure in seeing Genesis realise just how far he had pushed, as well.

"Come with me," Genesis says, when they are back on solid ground and Sephiroth is leading them down the path toward where Zack had said that he would be. 

It is... tempting. He can't say that the thought doesn't cross his mind.

After all, he had been increasingly made aware of how much he had never  _cared_ about the title of 'hero', or being the 'strongest'. What he wanted, if he were honest with himself... would be to have his friends back.

The feathers of his wing fluffing out because of the cold was a strange sensation in its newness, and the way Genesis laughed reminded him painfully of days long gone, that he still feared they would never be able to go back to.

"You  _can_ dismiss it if you want, Sephiroth."

He inclines his head, acknowledging the suggestion as a possibility, not letting on that he hadn't even thought to up until now.

The sudden loss of sensation is just as strange, the shock of cold against his now-bare back made the new hole in his coat downright unpleasant.

"I think," he says, "that would be counterproductive." He can  _feel_ , as well as  _hear_ the way that Genesis reacts, tense and failing not to be angry at the perceived rejection. In many ways, his old friend hadn't changed one bit. "For both of us," he adds.

There is still too much that he needs to know, to learn, that he cannot from outside of Shinra. His wing has given him answers, in a sense, and he  _will_ get a more detailed explanation of this from both Genesis and Angeal when there is time, but it has also brought forth far more questions than he is comfortable with. Ones that he is sure will bring about a certain amount of danger in their investigation going forward.

...

Genesis is gone by the time he arrives at the bathhouse, a flurry of grey-black feathers to be found at one point further back in the trail. He likely hadn't gone very far, not in the state that he was in, and Sephiroth would be lying if he said that he had not considered the possibility. 

**Author's Note:**

> _Take a moment, remind yourself  
>  To take a moment and find yourself  
> Take a moment and ask yourself  
> If this is how we fall apart  
> But it's not, but it's not, but it's not, but it's not, but it's not_


End file.
